News for 09/14/2009- The Tides Foundation

President Obama told us if he wanted to know what kind of President he would be, we should look at whom he surrounds himself with. To that end, we continue to acquaint ourselves. Today’s focus:

The Tides Foundation:

Per their website, their mission is to partner with philanthropists, foundations, activists, and organizations across the country and across the globe to promote economic justice, robust democratic processes, and the opportunity to live in a healthy and sustainable environment where human rights are preserved and protected.

They offer an array of services to simplify and amplify allies efforts. From donor advised funds to fiscal sponsorship, from green nonprofit centers to programmatic consulting, from grants management to risk management and more, Tides says they give them the freedom to focus on the change you want to see.

Each Tides organization pursues a distinct yet related strategy to promote the Tides mission. Tides Foundation works with donors to increase and organize resources for positive social change. Tides Center is sponsor to nearly 200 projects nationwide working to advance progressive social change. Tides Shared Spaces operates and supports green nonprofit centers.

Definition:

Social Justice, per Wikipedia: Social justice is both a philosophical debate and an important issue in politics, religion and civil society. Most individuals wish to live in a just society, but different political ideologies have different conceptions of what a ‘just society’ actually is. The term “social justice” is often employed by the political left to describe a society with a greater degree of economic egalitarianism, which may be achieved through progressive taxation, income redistribution, or even property redistribution, policies aimed toward achieving that which developmental economists refer to as equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. Tides Foundation espouses to Support Progressive Social Change http://www.tides.org/about-us/board-of-directors/index.html– board of directors link http://www.tides.org/about-us/executive-team/index.html– executive staff link In the ten-year period between 1996 and 2006, Tides Center was fiscal sponsor to 677 projects with combined revenues of $522.4 million, and has worked with well over 800 projects since the first days as the Projects Program. Tides Foundation has had 30 years of visionary philanthropy for progressive social change. Since 2000, it has granted more than $400 million to progressive nonprofit organizations. Our growth is a testament to the joint commitment among our partners and staff to supporting positive social change domestically and globally. http://www.muckety.com/Tides-Foundation/5022412.muckety Wade Rathke former director – founder of Acorn, and his brother were bailed out by Drummond Pike, founder of Tides Center and Tides Foundation, after Dale Rathke embezzled nearly one million dollars from Acorn. http://www.nlpc.org/stories/2008/09/08/donor-who-bailed-out-rathkes-identified-foundation-head

The unfolding financial scandal at the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, has taken a new turn. ACORN, based in New Orleans, never wanted known the identity of the person who assumed responsibility for a promissory note of nearly $740,000, a sum representing the remaining balance of the roughly $950,000 embezzled from ACORN’s coffers nearly a decade ago. But thanks to some digging by San Francisco Chronicle reporter Henry K. Lee, the identity of the person is now known: Drummond Pike, founder and chief executive of the Tides Foundation, a San Francisco-based philanthropy well-known in progressive circles. The case is significant for organized labor because ACORN founder and chief organizer Wade Rathke is the founder and chief organizer of Local 100 (Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas) of the Service Employees International Union. In addition, SEIU Local 880, based in the Midwest, operates as an adjunct of ACORN. Three months ago, he resigned from his post over the scandal. Union Corruption Update recently reported that Dale Rathke, Wade Rathke’s brother, stepped down in the wake of revelations that during 1999-2000, while serving as ACORN’s chief financial officer, he transferred $948,507.50 from ACORN to Citizens Consulting, Inc. The balance transfer, by all accounts theft by any other name, was carried for years on CCI’s books as a loan. ACORN executives at the time declined to notify authorities, preferring to negotiate a promissory note with the Rathke family to pay off the balance. By this year, $210,000 had been repaid – seven $30,000 installments. The scandal had been hushed up until a disgruntled ACORN employee (and possibly ex-employee) blew the whistle several months ago. In the aftermath, Wade Rathke departed and the nonprofit network secured an agreement from an unnamed donor to assume payments.

Excerpt: “MONEY. Money is to the Tides Foundation and Center what water is to the tide. You can’t be sure from what source any part comes. You can’t be sure where any part goes. But it can knock you off your feet and pull you down. And there is an ocean of it.

“The Tides Foundation and its offspring, the Tides Center, effectively “launder” donor dollars when they give to other nonprofits. The San Francisco-based Foundation receives donations from individuals and foundations and then channels them to activist groups. The result is that the original donor can’t be linked to the ultimate recipient. According to the most recent available IRS form 990, the Tides Foundation received $86.1 million in grants, gifts and other contributions in 2001. It gave away over $76 million. Since it was established in 1976, the Foundation has given away over $300 million in grants. (Total 2001 income was $93.2 million; the Foundation had assets of more than $156 million.)” To read the entire piece, click on this link. Tides_Foundation.pdf (147 KB) Note: Kendeda Sustainability Fund of the Tides Foundation is one of many foundations funding Grist, a liberal on-line magazine, according to its own website. Grist recently called for “war crime trials” for those who don’t agree that humans are causing catastrophic climate change.

The web of allies is endless and interesting. This all illustrates the change the American people voted for, whether they knew it or not. If you are not in support of this way of doing things, you MUST speak out! We outnumber them but they have a leg up as they have been building to this end for decades

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"Their final objective toward which all their deciet is directed, is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection" - Henry A. Wallace, US VP 1941-45

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